A member of Doris Bickle's church in Indiana used to attend service on Sundays with fresh bruises.

A kick from a cow was her explanation for one of them but it never felt right to Bickle, who is now 71 and was then the young wife of a new minister.

"I knew that was so wrong but I didn't have any idea how to proceed with that," Bickle said. "She would not want to go any further."

A month or so later, the woman was nearly beaten to death and her husband was arrested, Bickle said.

That's one of several moments that led Bickle to became an advocate of churches intervening to prevent domestic violence, she said. She is now a minister at Greenville's Grace Church, working with women and families.

Churches in the Upstate are increasingly becoming active in seeking out domestic violence, and pastors are looking for ways to be helpful, said Julie Meredith, program director at Safe Harbor, an organization that specializes in helping domestic violence victims in Anderson, Greenville, Oconee and Pickens counties.

Dozens of churches and faith leaders are expected to take part in a training program on April 20 — Shepherding the Unsafe: Responding to Domestic Abuse in the Church. The program is free and open to church and lay leaders.

A blueprint document, written in part by Safe Harbor's experts, will be available to churches as a guide for how to respond and prepare for domestic abuse issues.

Meredith said church leaders have both opportunities and struggles that other domestic violence experts don't have. Pastors have an ongoing relationship with their congregation so there can be a depth of understanding that a professional counselor would never have, but pastors also have a relationship with the whole family, including the potential abuser.

"Domestic abuse is so complicated," Meredith said. "It involves the whole family and churches are involved with the whole family."

People can feel more open in talking to church leaders initially because of that existing relationship and doubts about whether something is abuse or worth reporting, said Pastor Curtis Debose, of Mitchell Road Presbyterian Church.

A member of his congregation went to him for help with some issues of abuse in her marriage.

Debose said he wasn't always prepared to help abuse victims and had to learn a lot about signs of abuse and how to console his church members through difficult decisions about whether to stay, and honor marriage vows, or leave and be safe.

It comes down to safety first, Debose said.

Bickle said Grace Church focuses on being open and vulnerable and her church is in a great position to reach people who have been hurt.

"My hope is women see these churches as a safe place to come and at least share with someone in their life," she said. "As long as there's secrecy there's never hope, keeping all these things secret that your husband is doing to you a secret means it will never change. Bringing the abuse into the open will be painful for her and for her husband but it will start the healing process. This is abuse that God never intended in a marriage. This is not how a marriage works."

She said churches and church leaders need to be prepared to step in when they notice abuse and especially when congregation members come to them with concerns about abuse.

It generally doesn't happen as cleanly as someone saying they are being abused, said Meredith.

Many abuse victims know something is wrong but need to be able to talk to someone and a pastor can be in a great position to listen and help, she said.

"They can be the greatest resource, an affirmation of safety, or they can be a roadblock," Meredith said.

Domestic abuse is a plague in South Carolina, roughly a million people in the state, that's 40 percent of women and 18 percent of men, have been stalked, raped or suffered severe physical violence, according to the most recent statistics published in May 2017 by the South Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault.

Recognizing the front line role that churches can play in preventing sexual assault and helping victims is a first step.

Meredith said churches will not solve all of the domestic abuse problems, much less overnight, but it's a start.

"This is simply scratching the surface," she said. "This is a start to shaping what a health and safe church looks like."

She said people come in for abuse help infrequently but the church is prepared and advocates first for safety.

The church, broadly, has had something of a sense of shame about domestic violence, Bickle said.

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She said it's important to remove the stigma of domestic violence and to protect victims. Reconciliation in a marriage is still vital to seek, if there is genuine contrition and change, but it's a process that involves working with pastors and counselors, Bickle said.

For church leaders, one of the most important first steps is to make literature and other resources like Safe Harbor known to the congregation, Meredith said. She said pastors should become comfortable talking about the harm of domestic violence and the options available, through sermons and general talks with their congregations.